


the hardest decision

by epistretes



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alistair POV, Alistair reflects, Did not do the Dark Ritual, Everyone else just gets a mention, Gen, King Alistair, Male-Female Friendship, if you want to read it that way - Freeform, moody and depressed Alistair, otherwise it is purely gen, tiny hint of Zevran/f!Warden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 12:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2309645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistretes/pseuds/epistretes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair walks to Redcliffe with the party after the Archdemon is destroyed and he thinks upon his decisions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the hardest decision

The long journey from Denerim’s ruins to Redcliffe weighed heavily on Alistair’s heart. The body of the Grey Warden was magically preserved by Wynne in the carriage so as not to rot with the time and the heat.

He had never felt more selfish and yet each footfall brought more and more shame to his soul. He knew, really, that he had been right in refusing to lay with Morrigan. The Grey Warden had told him what would happen - if he took the ritual with the witch that he hated, he would plant a child in her womb. He would be getting a bastard on the witch with the soul of an Old God. The soul that had so recently been tainted by the darkspawn and ravaged his whole country. The soul that had caused the death of his half-brother, Cailan.

Had he done so, lain with her and granted her the boon she sought, he would bring not only a bastard, but a royal bastard. Some day, that child could return and he would be granting power over Ferelden’s throne to Morrigan and to Flemeth, for they had not actually slain the woman as her daughter had wanted. He could not do that.

Were he some simple man, were he not the biological offshoot of the former King Maric; he would have done it. He would have swallowed his pride, he would have given his virginity and a child to a woman he despised solely to save the woman currently sleeping her eternal sleep in the carriage beside him. He knew, out there, Morrigan hated him even more than she had already done. She had opened up to the Grey Warden and he had never thought to see the witch so distraught over another in her life. She had covered it up with anger, but he had understood in that moment before she was gone forever. She had truly loved the Warden, her only true friend - and he had let her die.

However, he was no longer just a simple man. He was the King of Ferelden, put there by the very woman who had allowed her soul to be burned up to save them all. There would be no meeting her at the Maker’s side after his death to beg her forgiveness. She was gone forever.

Had he wed and his wife borne a child or even, Maker forbid, got another bastard out there first; his soul would not ache so much. The Old God reborn would have been his first issue and therefore first in line. He had more than just himself and his friends to think of, he had all of Ferelden to think of. He was the last of the line of Calenhad the Great, the line they had fought so hard to restore to the throne after the Orlesian occupation.

It was the same reason that he had not pushed Zevran out of the way to stop the Warden from sacrificing herself and taking that blow instead. How he bitterly regretted it now and would do for the rest of eternity. Never more had he hated being the child of Maric. It had caused him to lose his best friend in all the world.

As they reached Redcliffe, it was all he could do to stand before her loved ones, before all of those she had saved and give her eulogy. The warden lay there, looking serene and while they all believed she would be at the side of the Maker - he knew better. She was utterly gone. 

Zevran disappeared that night and Alistair never heard from him again. Leliana took her parting with tear tracks fresh on her cheeks and Wynne left with Shale, both of them silent and grave. Sten had left for his own people and Oghren mumbled something about joining the army and killing any darkspawn he saw in her memory. The Mabari hound had not imprinted on Alistair, that he knew, but he seemed bereft without his master and he stayed near to Alistair. Perhaps the smell of the taint in him soothed the beast, he did not know.

He sent her remains to Weisshaupt and started his lonely return back to Denerim to begin the task of ruling and rebuilding. One thing and one thing only gave him hope for the future without the Warden by his side, leading him and telling him he was an idiot. 

No decision would ever be this hard again.


End file.
